Our panic and fear and insecurity – that is what led us to this awful brink of liberty-defying action by our government.

The spying on Americans by our own government is derived solely from fear.

The threads of this fear are strewn all around our national landscape.

We are afraid of obesity, so we allow the government to ban big soft drinks and impose all sorts of sin taxes.

We are afraid of people who don’t look or act like us, so we allow the government to sanction morality.

We are afraid of Mother Nature, so we petition the government to spend inordinate sums protecting us from the elements, far disproportionate to the threats we face.

We are afraid of inequity so allow the government to redistribute wealth, trampling liberty in the process and creating a bureaucracy that is far more wasteful and inefficient than the private sector will ever be.

We are afraid of school shootings (which are, on average, less dangerous the deer-vs.-automobile fatalities) so we turn our schools into fortresses.

We are afraid of a repeat of 9/11, so we allow the government to subject us all to humiliating, un-American random searches at airports (Question: Does anyone know of a SINGLE terrorist action that has been foiled by the TSA since 9/11? Think of what could have been done with the $60 BILLION we have spent on that in the last 10 years)

It’s “fear itself,” as FDR put it, that threatens our way of life more than any terrorist or crazed gunman or oversized fast food meal ever could.

But we are so eager to do just that … to give up liberty for the illusion of safety.

“We’ve got to DO something!” “If it will save just one life, it’s worth doing.” “Somebody should have prevented this!”

The post-tragedy refrains in this country are certainly understandable. But in the world of instant communication and instant reaction, where the “solution” is being proposed before the full extent of the tragedy de jour is even grasped, there is a dangerous shortfall of context and contemplation.

And there is a failure to fence in fear. A failure to acknowledge that death and tragedy are a part our global fabric – last time we checked, we all die eventually.

That’s in no way to say we should be fatalistic or to be resigned to unnecessary loss of life.

But decisions should be made deliberately … almost, in a way, reverently. Our liberties are as precious and fragile as ancient scrolls or an infant’s tiny limbs.

Unfortunately, it appears liberty is being ripped up like junk mail; tossed around like a rag doll.

The government’s power is growing and growing and growing. It grows under Republican control and it grows under Democratic control. From IRS thuggery and largesse to TSA inefficiently to Justice Department intimidation of the free press - the erosion of liberty is, sadly, mainly a bi-partisan effort. And why shouldn’t it be? Our fear is the fuel that drives this unprecedented expansion. The mealy-mouthed “middle” of the American political spectrum is being revealed as a feckless coalition of those who want to perpetuate their own power by feeding on the fear of many Americans. The result is Brother so Big that he can’t be stopped.

Meanwhile, only on the far left and far right is there any discussion of the role of liberty in all of this.

Truly, what’s even scarier than the fact that the government is monitoring virtually every phone call and email of every American is that there are so many people who still think it’s OK!

Those people are consumed by fear. And that fear is stoked, then preyed upon by those in power who brush aside talk of liberty as they embrace their roles as State Safety Officers.

Then we settle back into our recliners, and wait (or is it anticipate?) the next tragedy so the cycle of liberty-erosion/government growth starts all over again.

In the end, none of us deserve neither liberty nor safety and are likely to end up with neither.